Archive of Our Own

Year 283 after the Conquest

One week after the battle of the Trident

The histories would linger on the moment that Lord Eddard Stark arrived at the city of King's Landing in triumph to claim it for the new-conquering king Robert of House Baratheon, First of his Name, but to Ned, it was hardly a moment of glory.

Instead, he found himself staring at Lord Tywin Lannister's army, whose ranks stretched westward along the Goldroad as far as Ned could see. Lord Tywin himself was absent, having followed the Kingsroad north toward the Trident with some two hundred of his bannermen when the gold cloaks had refused to open the gates for nearly two days, claiming their only orders were to guard the city against all threats. Had Ned and his men taken the Kingsroad, they would surely have met him on the way, but his new father-by-marriage Lord Tully had suggested they take the faster river route south of the Gods Eye, thus reaching the capital a day earlier than expected.

It was Lord Kevan Lannister, therefore, who greeted Ned warily before the gates opened to reveal a young man in bloodstained golden armour and a filthy white cloak astride a white destrier.

"Jaime!" Lord Kevan exclaimed.

"Uncle," said Ser Jaime Lannister, inclining his head. "Lord Stark. I pray you and my lord father will pardon our tardiness. There were...complications."

"Where is the king, Jaime?" demanded his uncle.

A smile briefly flickered to life on Ser Jaime's face. "I thought he was at the Trident, uncle."

"This is no time for japes," snapped Lord Kevan. "Where is the king?"

"King Aerys is dead, my lords. An unfortunate accident." His striking green eyes met Ned's, and Ned was the first to look away. He ought to be disappointed that he couldn't avenge Brandon and his lord father--had he not dreamt of bringing Ice's blade down upon Aerys Targaryen's unworthy neck? Justice for Winterfell. Justice for the North. As though sensing his unease, Jaime Lannister continued, something in his voice suggesting that he was hiding laughter. "My lady would speak with you. Both of you, alone."

"Does the queen think we are fools enough to trust her?" demanded Lord Kevan. "If your lord father were here--"

"And yet he's not." He looked at Ned again with that same infuriating half-smile. "She bade me tell you, Lord Stark, that she has something you want and is willing to discuss terms."

Beside him, Lord Kevan gave a half-choked laugh. "Terms, Jaime? She must be as mad as Aerys."

Rhaegar Targaryen was dead, his corpse burned to ashes on Ned's orders, and Ned had tried his best not to think of the prince's remaining family, hundreds of leagues away in King's Landing. Robert wanted them all dead, even the children, and Lord Arryn had taken Ned aside and begged him to ride to King's Landing with all speed. Even with Robert wounded, I fear for what he might do, or what others might do in his name. Word of the Lannister army's movements had concerned him even more.

"What does Rhaella Targaryen have that I want?" he asked aloud.

"That is for my lady to tell you herself, Lord Stark," replied Ser Jaime with a shrug beneath the once-white cloak. Ned couldn't help but wonder whose blood it was that stained the fabric. Have the Kingsguard turned kingslayers now? His father would have condemned them all for oathbreakers, but it was King Aerys who had murdered Lord Rickard in cold blood, contrary to all laws of gods and men. All the same, he misliked Ser Jaime's expression. "Why spoil the surprise?"

As they rode through the silent streets, Ned could see house after house draped in mourning black, windows and doors shut and bolted. At the sight of their banners--the grey Stark direwolf and above it the golden stag of House Baratheon--it seemed the smallfolk shrank away. What savages they think we are. For a moment he was back at the Trident, surrounded by the stench of blood and death, the screams echoing in his ears. The royal levies had been drawn from the Crownlands--from the capital itself--and so many had perished in those shallow waters just the previous week. Perhaps they're right to fear us. Even the Lannister banner snapping above Lord Kevan prompted no response, no matter how popular Lord Tywin had once been in King's Landing.

The Red Keep loomed before them at the crest of Aegon's High Hill, its blood-coloured walls gleaming in the sunlight. A filthy place, his father had told him long ago, mouth twisting in distaste as he recalled the single journey he'd made to the capital to pay homage to King Aerys when first he took his throne.

Rickard Stark had made one more such journey and never returned.

As they passed beneath the gate, Ned jerked hard on his horse's reins, nearly upsetting Lord Kevan. Ser Jaime came between them, placing one gauntleted hand on Ned's arm. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "We hadn't the time to take them down. If it's any consolation, your father and brother are...not among them."

"Where are they?" echoed Ned, still staring at the row of grinning skulls above the gate. He counted ten of them, picked clean. Some of them were burned black. He could be lying. Even if Brandon and Father were there, how would I know them? Shaking his head. "Never mind. Let us be done with this mummery, Ser Jaime. Where is your lady?"

Ser Jaime gestured to a massive building with tall windows made of stained glass. "In there."

Stepping through the great wooden doors, Ned had to squint until his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom. Ahead of him loomed the Iron Throne, its shadow slicing in a thousand small cuts across the floor. As he drew closer, he could make out a smaller chair at its foot and a figure seated there, crowned and veiled.

Ser Jaime strode past Ned to take his place at the corner of the dais. The enormous room was empty but for them, and his armoured feet echoed uncomfortably as he made his way across. He came to a halt as he caught sight of a patch of blackened stone that gave off a queer, nauseating smell. There had been only one letter he'd seen that revealed the manner of his father and brother's deaths. Burned alive in a pit of wildfire. A quick glance at the torches lining the room told him nothing, save that they looked normal. Forcing his thoughts back to the task at hand, he stepped gingerly around the destroyed stones.

After what seemed like an age, Ned stopped some twenty feet from the throne, but despite the almost-instinctive desire, he did not kneel.

"Your G--" he stopped. "My lady Targaryen."

The woman in the chair let out what Ned realised was a hoarse laugh. "Ser Jaime, you didn't tell him."

The Kingsguard knight shook his head without a word and Ned felt his cheeks grow warm. "My lady, I was told you wished to speak with me."

"I did." She neither rose nor lifted her veil. As Ned looked closely at her and noted the unfamiliar accent, he realised his mistake. "And do not forget, Lord Stark, that I am still a princess of Dorne, no matter what your usurper Lord Baratheon thinks."

***

She had seen Lord Eddard Stark once, at the ill-fated tourney held two years earlier in Harrenhal at the height of the false spring. My husband crowned his sister the Queen of Love and Beauty, and behold what came of that. Such a tiny thing to set the world ablaze.

Lord Stark took a step back. "Princess Elia."

Elia nodded. "You seem surprised."

"I..." he swallowed. His cheeks had a boy's roundness still, though the cold grey eyes seemed decades older. She couldn't recall his age--younger than dead Lord Brandon, but older than his sister. "I didn't know you were here."

"Why would you? You had more pressing concerns, I'm told." She had to stop for a moment to catch her breath, seeing a still form in black armour, rubies spilling forth into a watery grave. When she spoke again, she raised her voice so it echoed eerily in the deserted Throne Room. "You are a reasonable man, Lord Stark. Or so your sister once told me."

Lord Stark froze--he'd been fidgeting in a manner that reminded Elia of the handful of times she had seen his sister at Harrenhal. "What do you know about Lyanna?"

"More than Lord Baratheon would ever believe." Certain now that she had his full attention, Elia took her time before continuing. "I came here to help your brother, Lord Stark. I tried to reason with the king--we all did--but he would hear none of us."

"And how did the king die, Princess?" He couldn't help but glance at her single guard, though Elia did not follow his gaze.

Instead she smiled bitterly. "An act of mercy. The less you know of it, the better." He would learn the full truth sooner or later. The Red Keep was full of eyes, and no doubt hundreds of them had witnessed Jaime Lannister's departure from the Throne Room scarcely three hours earlier, his sword and white cloak bespattered with blood. The blood of the dragon looks the same as any man's. "He should have died long ere this."

Eddard Stark stared at her for a moment, then at the monstrosity behind her--thousands of half-melted swords stained with the blood of centuries past. It had killed Maegor the Cruel and, as far as she was concerned, Aerys the Mad. Whatever glory the lords of Winterfell and Storm's End sought here, they would not find it.

"But you would not admit Lord Tywin," he finally said.

"That was the king's doing. I had no part in it." That much was true. Her part had been to prevent the king from changing his mind. What had Lord Varys whispered as she first looked out upon Tywin Lannister's army? The Grand Maester's loyalties have never been in question. The king made the mistake of assuming those loyalties were to him. And it had been easy--even for Elia, whose illness had inspired snide comments since before her marriage--to intercept the doddering old man as he made his way toward the king's quarters in Maegor's Holdfast once Varys distracted his guards. Easier still to slit his throat. That she had not anticipated.

Oberyn would be so proud.

The Grand Maester's pockets had taken what seemed like hours to search, but Elia found not only letters from Lord Tywin but also one from Robert Baratheon, styling himself King Robert, First of his Name, and demanding the surrender of King's Landing to Lord Eddard Stark, who was on his way from the Trident. It was only a matter of time. So she never told the king. And, for reasons he had yet to divulge to her, Jaime Lannister had killed him. I would give him a kingdom of his own for that, had I the power.

"What do you want, princess?" Lord Stark asked her. "Ser Jaime," he added, his eyes lingering on the silent Kingsguard knight, "said you wished to discuss terms."

"My terms are simple, Lord Stark. I wish to return to Dorne with my children as soon as can be arranged. I want all the servants and retainers of House Targaryen permitted to join us or to return to their homes unmolested. And I want the Dornish forces disbanded and sent home. No questions. No retribution." As she spoke, she felt herself straightening in the chair, remembering one of many lessons learned at her mother's knee. Assume that they will grant whatever you ask, and you may be surprised how many will simply say yes on instinct. She doubted the lord of Winterfell would be so easily won, but she would use what weapons she had. "Let us be done with this needless war, Lord Stark. More than that, I have something you want, and am prepared to offer it to you in exchange for our safe passage to Sunspear."

Lord Stark's mouth worked for a few moments before any words emerged. "What's that?"

It was all she had, but it was a prize greater than the entire royal treasury if she had judged Eddard Stark rightly. "I know where your sister Lyanna is."

***

The Dornish capital of Sunspear couldn't have been larger than White Harbor, but the golden-towered palace rising above its twisting walls made it more impressive to Lyanna's eyes. After nearly a week of rocky shoreline--save the single lonely holdfast at Salt Shore--they'd reached the mouth of the Greenblood River that morning as the sun rose, melting layer upon layer of mist to reveal a marvellous floating city composed of nothing but boats and delicate plank bridges, the bulk of Sunspear looming in the horizon beyond.

"The Planky Town," her son's wet-nurse Wylla had told her with a grin. "You can find anything there if you know who to ask. That's what Mors told me." Mors was her paramour, one of Lord Arion Dayne's personal couriers, and he had travelled all over Dorne, or so Wylla claimed.

Lyanna wondered if a truly good woman would have turned aside from curiosity, would have buried herself in grief for brother, father, and the thousands of men who had died in her name. But I never asked anyone to die for me. Nobody cared about that. As they drew closer to their destination, she felt a coil of fear in her belly, recalling the army she had seen marching through the Prince's Pass earlier that year, Dornish spearmen sent to fight her brother and the man to whom she'd been betrothed. How many of them will come home?

She'd refused to look back when they left the Tower of Joy a fortnight ago--even now, some part of her shuddered at the name's cruel irony. Rhaegar ought to have known it was cursed. Perhaps he'd thought himself above curses, protected by the blood of the dragon or something equally foolish. I should be grieving for him, but in truth I scarcely knew him. All she had left of him was the babe drowsing in Wylla's arms, and there were days when he scarcely seemed real to Lyanna.

He had no name yet, her little lost boy. From the stubborn frown to the thatch of dark hair on his head, she was reminded of no one more than Brandon every time she looked at him--like a bruise she couldn't help but touch. I could name him Brandon. And when he was old enough to ask her why--perhaps by then it might hurt less. Your Uncle Brandon was brave but reckless. He died in the war. Because of him there was a war. Because of me.

Lady Ashara would have told her those were foolish thoughts. She was Ser Arthur Dayne's sister and had arrived at the tower soon before Lyanna's confinement, gaunt and hollow-eyed, with Ser Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

She owed the Dornishwoman her life; that much was certain. It had been Ashara's efforts that brought Lyanna through the fever that had seized her after the baby was born. She had only been well enough to venture out of her chamber on the day the letter arrived from King's Landing to say that King Aerys and Prince Rhaegar were dead. They were to travel south to Starfall and take ship to Sunspear to put themselves under Dornish protection. It was the longer route, but to sail across the Sea of Dorne risked encountering Lord Redwyne's fleet, which had sailed months ago to besiege Storm's End, and there was no way of knowing which side the lord of the Arbor supported.

"But my brother is in King's Landing," Lyanna had argued, glaring up at Ser Gerold, who was old enough to be her grandsire and who she could tell had taken a liking to her in his own gruff way. "Ned would never harm me or my son."

"We can't take the risk, my lady," said Ser Oswell Whent, who had brought them word of the disaster in King's Landing and stayed on after Rhaegar left to salvage what he could of House Targaryen's cause. Only Ser Arthur had been with them since the journey began in the Riverlands on an evening so cold Lyanna thought her nose might freeze off. She'd almost forgotten what winter felt like after nearly a year in Dorne.

"Your boy is a royal heir, baseborn or not," Ser Oswell added. "You can't forget that."

"He's right," Lady Ashara added. She'd been watching them quietly since giving them the news. The letter was pressed between her fingers, its red-and-black seal quartering the arms of Targaryen and Martell. "Lord Eddard can come to you in Sunspear on your terms." She looked at each one of them in turn, lingering longest on Lyanna, who opened her mouth to protest. "You tell me your brother would never harm your son. What of Robert Baratheon?"

Once, Lyanna might have made the same promise on Robert's behalf--he was Ned's foster-brother, his dearest friend, and Ned trusted him. But then I betrayed them both. She shook her head. "I don't know."

"It might be best, then, if we give out that your boy is mine." Lady Ashara spoke calmly, but deliberately avoided her brother's gaze. "Brandon Stark's baseborn son will mean nothing to anyone in Dorne. You can tell your brother the truth if you trust him, and the Princess and her family will know. But for everyone else, we should agree on a single version of what happened here."

Lyanna's mouth worked for a moment before she found the words. "For how long?"

"Until we know what kind of king Robert Baratheon is," said Ser Arthur, crossing to his sister's side. Lowering his voice, he asked, "Ash, what are you doing?"

"Making the best of it," his sister snapped. "And there's no need to whisper. Ser Gerold can tell you I left King's Landing in disgrace." She looked up at the Lord Commander, who lowered his eyes in embarrassment. "I'd found myself with child, and Lord Varys discovered it. You can guess what happened next."

"Were you hurt? And the child--Ash, what happened?"

"It doesn't matter, Arthur, leave it be." She sighed before continuing, her eyes on Lyanna. "Lord Brandon was the father. He never knew. Even if he had known, he was betrothed elsewhere. So you see--the perfect story."

Ser Arthur looked unconvinced but Lyanna nodded slowly, her cheeks growing red as she recalled the night she'd overheard Brandon bedding Barbrey Ryswell and laughed at the older girl for her foolishness. She'd teased him about Ashara Dayne too, after seeing them together at Harrenhal. "I'm sorry," she said, unable to think of anything else.

"We have both lost our reputations through the foolishness of men," Lady Ashara remarked acidly. "Don't let them blame you, Lady Lyanna. Look them in the eyes and ask them who was truly responsible, and watch them shrink like the worms they are."

Ned isn't like that, she'd wanted to argue. But how could she? Even now, Lady Ashara stood in silence some distance away, her gaze fixed on the golden towers of the royal palace. Lyanna could see one of her hands clenched tightly around a fold of her gown.

She might have run away, once. But the three Kingsguard knights were the greatest in the realm and she was half-convinced that Lady Ashara had eyes in the back of her head, so watchful was she. Worst of all, Lyanna was nearly skin and bone from her illness and suspected she might faint if she rode longer than an hour. She had never been so weak before and she hated it with every bone in her body.

So she relented. It had been a week's journey to Starfall with a stop every night at a castle along the way. First Kingsgrave, where the ancient lady of House Manwoody had secretly delighted Lyanna with blood-soaked stories of her ancestors' feuds with House Caron of Nightsong; and then to Blackmont, high above the Torrentine River and guarding one of the few passes leading to the sea.

Lyanna had thought the Tower of Joy unspeakably beautiful when she first saw it, but when they arrived at the mouth of the Torrentine, the castle of Starfall--perched on its rocky island in the middle of the river's swift and deadly currents--took her breath away. Dizzyingly far above was the tower called the Palestone Sword, whose light warned ships away from the treacherous rocks. To her disappointment, they stayed barely a day, taking ship the very next morning along the inhospitable southern coast of Dorne toward the capital.

As the sun began to sink on this sixth day of their journey, Lyanna could see lights along the shore long before the palace came into view. It seemed to rise from the water like a strange, complicated flower, its shining walls lined with torches so they glowed in shades of cream and gold. I am as far from Winterfell as I could possibly be. The thought was a cold knife to her heart and she shivered at it.

The ship came to a graceful halt at the end of a long pier hung with coloured lanterns, but Lyanna froze where she stood, clinging to the rail. Behind her, Lady Ashara cleared her throat. "It's time, my lady."

"What is this place, Lady Ashara?"

"The Water Gardens. They were built for a Targaryen queen a hundred years ago. You'll be safe here, as will your son." She made her way past Lyanna toward the pier. "The gods willing, his brother and sister have arrived from King's Landing with my lady."

Lyanna hadn't set eyes on Elia Martell since that last ill-fated day at Harrenhal. What can I possibly say to her? Swallowing her fear, she followed Lady Ashara. As she stepped onto the pier, the sudden stillness of the ground beneath her feet made her lose her balance--at least until Ser Arthur caught her arm and steadied her.

"Lyanna?" She turned at the sound of a voice so familiar she wanted to weep. Pushing through the assembled throng, she saw a stocky, dark-haired form, the narrow, serious face full of disbelief. "You're alive."

"Oh, Ned," she whispered. Without another word, she threw herself into his arms and clung to him. He smelled of sweaty wool and horse and home. Lyanna buried her face in his cloak--far too warm for Dorne, but she didn't care--and tried not to think about the fact that he was taller now, that he had a beard, and looked so much like their father. He must blame me for their deaths; how could he not? "Thank the gods."

But Ned was staring past her at Lady Ashara and at Wylla, still holding her charge. Lyanna stepped back and raised her chin. "I would have told you everything but you only ever listened to Robert. None of this was ever meant to happen, Ned, I swear it."

"You see, Lord Stark, it is as I told you." The crowd behind Ned had parted, and Lyanna saw a group of guardsmen carrying a carved wooden chair. In it was a woman she recognised as her heart began to pound--dark, snapping eyes, and black hair to match the elaborate red-and-black mourning gown she wore. Here in Dorne she seemed taller somehow, more powerful in spite of the chair. It is where she belongs. "Not only is your sister alive; she was not abducted in the first place. Unless," the woman added, her eyes meeting Lyanna's, "you wish to dispute that, Lady Lyanna?"

Lyanna shook her head wordlessly.

"I hope you're satisfied."

"Satisfied?" Ned stared at Elia Martell in disbelief. "Gods, satisfied! My father and brother are still dead, my men still slaughtered at the Trident--"

"Ours too, Lord Stark. Forget that at your peril. Dorne had nothing to do with this war and our men died for it all the same," snapped the princess. "Your king--" the word had all the force of a death-curse, "--will leave us to mourn in peace now, I trust."

"That's enough, Elia," said a man's voice, thickly accented. Lyanna saw someone leaning close to the princess--shorter than Ned, with a dark, squarish face and brown hair. "Our guests have had a long journey. There's no reason this discussion cannot wait."

Princess Elia nodded after a moment, her expression mutinous, and Lyanna let herself breathe again. Ned held out his arm to her in silence and Lyanna took it. "The beard suits you," she said as they moved slowly down the pier. "You look like Father." She could hear the hiccup in her voice. "Is Benjen all right, Ned?"

"He's in Winterfell." Lyanna could see him glance none-too-subtly at Lady Ashara, who had moved silently to Princess Elia's side and was whispering to her, their hands tightly clasped on the arm of the princess' chair. It seemed a thousand years ago that Lyanna had teased him so mercilessly about dancing with her at Harrenhal. "The only Stark there now," Ned added after a moment.

"Not for long," Lyanna said. "You'll be going back soon, surely."

"We," Ned said, all of Ice's steel in his voice. Just like Father.

"Ned--"

He stopped, gripping her arm. "You can't possibly--"

"Not now," she hissed as Lady Ashara glanced back at them. "I won't talk about this now, Ned."

"You can't mean to stay here after all that's happened. You don't belong here, Lya. Neither of us does."

They had stepped through a gate and Lyanna caught her breath as she saw her surroundings properly, letting go of Ned's arm. A courtyard lay before her, bordered on all sides by a shaded walkway lined with delicate, pointed arches. Within a line of fruit trees were pools and fountains, and Lyanna could see a dozen or so children playing and splashing. Wylla was seated on a bench beside one of the fountains, the baby feeding placidly. It all looks so peaceful.

"It eases the heart, doesn't it?"

Lyanna glanced to her left and saw a woman who, from the resemblance, had to be Princess Elia's mother. Her dark eyes widened. "Gods have mercy, you're only a child."

"I'm not--"

"Mother, there you are." It was the man who had spoken to Ned earlier. As she peered at him again, Lyanna frowned. She could have sworn that Princess Elia's brother had attended the tourney at Harrenhal, but she didn't recognise him now. "Welcome to Dorne, Lady Lyanna."

"Thank you, Prince Doran," Ned interjected.

"I can speak for myself, Ned," Lyanna snapped before turning to the prince. "Thank you, Your Grace. I..." the words seemed to dry up on her tongue and she found herself glancing toward Princess Elia on the far side of the gallery. "I never meant..."

Prince Doran shook his head. "There's no need for that tonight."

"Indeed," his mother added dryly. "I promise, my lady, there will be plenty of bickering on the morrow. I suggest you enjoy the peace while it lasts."

***

Elia's bedchamber looked just as it had before her marriage. When she'd first arrived in the palace a bare few days earlier, she'd sank onto the bed, buried her face in one of the silken pillows, and screamed until her throat was raw.

Then she poured herself a large glass of wine and tried to tell herself it was over. But it wasn't until Ashara followed her into the same room and hugged her close and silent until they'd both cried their fill that she felt...emptied. Sucked dry of all the poison of King's Landing and the Targaryens. All of them. Even her husband before gods and men. But not the children. Never the children. They, at least, were finally safe.

Rhaenys had already persuaded several of the older children to carry her on their shoulders while they swam in the pools. Aegon was too little for much more than crawling in the shallows. But he will grow up here, where he belongs. And now there was a third, the nameless little boy her husband and Lyanna Stark had created in the Dornish Mountains. Rhaegar thought him a girl and would have named him Visenya. No doubt his mother had her own ideas, though the girl had scarcely spoken three words at dinner while her brother glared forbiddingly at everyone who glanced their way.

Oberyn would have done the same in his place. Elia tried to remind herself of that. They'd sent word to him in the Free Cities, but the gods alone knew where Oberyn was. He'd brought together several of the more hotheaded young men in court and taken paid service with the Magister of Lys, and they'd heard no more since then.

When she'd last seen Ashara, her handmaid had been in disgrace before the entire court, ordered by the king himself to depart. No words from Elia could have helped, but Rhaegar's unexpected return had distracted the king long enough for Elia to see Ashara safely escorted from the city. It had been Ser Gerold Hightower's charge to see her to Starfall before joining his two Sworn Brothers in guarding Lyanna Stark, but Ashara had insisted otherwise.

"If I hadn't been there, she'd be dead," said Ashara, who was curled against a pile of pillows on Elia's bed with a glass of honey wine. "Arthur is many things, but he's no midwife."

"Was it so bad a birth?"

"Not as bad as either of yours, thank the gods, but she took feverish afterward." It was hard not to see the slow dawning of spring in the weeks following Rhaegar's death at the Trident as a sign of sorts, but even spring in Dorne must have been a shock for a lady who had grown up in the North. She was markedly thinner than Elia remembered from Harrenhal, and even windburn from the sea voyage couldn't hide the hollows in her cheeks. "She still hasn't recovered, not fully," Ashara confirmed. "She will, though. She's young."

"Too young," echoed Elia. "Gods, what was he thinking? What were we thinking?"

"You can't blame yourself for what your husband did. If it hadn't been Lyanna Stark, mayhap it would have been some other woman. And the same thing could have happened."

"It wasn't what Rhaegar did, Ash. We both know that. It was the king. If it hadn't been for Aerys, mad Aerys, dead Aerys..." Elia tasted the word, almost as sweet as the wine.

"How did he die, Elia?"

"Jaime Lannister did what Rhaegar ought to have done. He cut King Aerys' throat. Like a mad dog."

"He deserved no better. I'd consign him to burn forever, except that he'd probably enjoy it."

"A cold hell," said Elia softly. "That was what I told myself every day in King's Landing. The coldest and darkest of the seven hells. I only wish I'd been able to do it myself--that I'd put a knife in his heart on the day we came to the Red Keep, no matter the cost--"

"Don't say that." Ashara set her wine on the inlaid table beside the bed and slipped her arms around Elia's shoulders. "If anyone ought to have done it, it should have been your husband. And he was..." She stopped, biting her lip.

"You can say it, Ash. He was too weak. We all were, save Ser Jaime."

For several moments they were both silent, Ashara frowning into the distance. Then, with a shrug, she said, "I saw Ser Jaime near the pools before."

"Rhaenys won't let him out of her sight. She dotes on him more than she does on me these days." Elia's laughter surprised her. "Not that I can blame her. He's a fine specimen of a young man, our Ser Jaime."

"And you?" Ashara rested her head on Elia's shoulder and her eyes met Elia's, darker than Rhaegar's had been. "How are you, my lady?"

Elia leant forward till their foreheads touched. "Better now. I can breathe again, Ash. It's as though the air in that horrible place was strangling me."

"You're safe now," said Ashara. "We're all safe."

"Not the queen. Not Viserys. They're still trapped in Dragonstone." How strange that she'd come to think of that damp, gloomy island as home. We'd made it a home, all of us. "Queen Rhaella was kind to us, Ash, when we had no one else. And Viserys is just a boy and Rhaenys' cousin. She's already asking for him." Viserys had even tried to argue that Rhaenys should join them in Dragonstone until the king raised one clawed hand to strike him and the queen stepped between them, gripping his wrist until her nails left marks in his milk-pale skin. You will not raise a hand to him while I live. They were the last words she spoke to him, though she couldn't have known that. "They were the Mad King's victims too, for all that they shared his blood."

"So were we all. And now we can be King Robert's." Ashara wrinkled her nose as she raised her glass. Elia raised hers in turn in a brief salute. "Does he know Lyanna Stark is here?" Ashara asked after taking a sip.

"If he did, he'd be here himself. Our usurper king does nothing by halves." He went to war for her. He killed my husband for her, drove a hammer through his heart. Elia blinked away what she told herself weren't tears. "She'd be mad to go anywhere near him after all that's happened."

"She didn't--"

"I don't blame her, Ash," Elia cut her off. "What she did--what Rhaegar did--was foolish and reckless, but who would have dreamt it would come to this?" Even in the few days since her arrival, Elia had seen the houses in Sunspear and the Planky Town transformed to black mourning for the dead of the Trident. Just like King's Landing. So many dead, and for what? "No, Ash, the lords of the land wanted to bring down a king--a king who richly deserved it, and whose son ought to have done it long ago. Rhaegar would still breathe if he had moved against his father when he had the chance. But his head was full of greater things, greater wars, prophecies, songs of ice and fire...I never understood it and he died for it."

"He got what he wanted, didn't he? A third child."

"For all the good it's done," Elia sighed. "What are we going to do with him?"

"If it were your choice, what would you do?"

"Keep him here. Let him grow up in the Water Gardens with Rhaenys and Aegon where he can't be used against us. The gods willing, Viserys too. The last hopes of House Targaryen."

"Eddard Stark may object. He may claim the boy for Winterfell."

"Not without my consent."

Both Elia and Ashara glanced up, Elia nearly upsetting the wineglass. Lyanna Stark closed the doors behind her and stepped into the torchlight. The yellow silk gown she wore had been Elia's long ago and suited her not at all, but there was a strange, coiled wildness in the northern girl's movements that held Elia's attention now as it had in Harrenhal two years before when she'd worn borrowed armour and entered the lists as a mystery knight.

"How long were you standing there?" Elia hid her unease beneath an over-large sip of wine.

"Long enough," replied Lyanna. "If I agreed for him to stay here, would my son be safe from Robert?"

Elia exchanged a brief glance with Ashara before motioning Lyanna closer. "Does he know you have a son?"

"Ned doesn't know yet, so I don't see how Robert could." Lyanna reached for a cushioned stool and placed it beside the bed. "But if Robert were to find out, you could protect him?"

"Of course. He'd be under royal protection. If Robert tried to harm him, it would be an act of war." Empty words, she knew. Robert Baratheon was hot-headed enough to challenge a mad king; it was a short step to thinking himself another Young Dragon. Their best hope lay in hiding the boy in plain sight--just another child in the Water Gardens. "Does he have a name?"

Lyanna looked up at her warily. "Brandon."

"It's a good name," Ashara said. "A safe name. Brandon Sand, named after his father. Who would think otherwise?"

Elia nodded. I don't deserve you. But Ashara would only have laughed if she'd said it aloud. Turning back to Lyanna, Elia studied her for a moment. "What do you want, Lady Lyanna?"

For a moment, the girl sat silent. Then, in a voice rough with threatening tears, she said, "Your husband was the last person who asked me that question. And he didn't care in the end either. What do I want?" She took a breath. "I want to disappear. I want people to stop looking at me, to stop thinking I wanted any of this to happen. I want to be anyone other than Lyanna Stark, the girl who started a war."

"You can't control what people think of you," said Elia gently. Too young. Gods, Rhaegar, how much you have to answer for. How much I have to answer for. "Believe me, I've tried."

"But I can't go back. I can't." Her voice cracked. "Not when Brandon and my father are dead because of me."

"You can't possibly believe that," Elia protested. "You? Rhaegar is more to blame than you are, and even he..." She stopped to catch her breath. "For the war, my lady, there is only one culprit. Without him, your brother and your father would still be alive, and for his death we have Jaime Lannister to thank."

"I only saw King Aerys once and I still see him in my nightmares." Lyanna shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. "Rhaegar said he'd expected Robert to challenge him to single combat. I just thought they'd be angry--all of them, angry with me. What usually happens when girls break their engagements. Nothing like this."

Ashara glanced between them. Without a word, she rose from the bed, graceful as a cat, and retrieved a third glass brimful of wine and the flagon to refill the others. "Here," she said, holding it out to Lyanna. "I can't say that it helps, but you mind it less."

The northern girl let out a hiccup of laughter and took a large sip. "I mean it. I want to not be Lyanna Stark."

"And who would you be?" asked Elia, adjusting the pillow at the small of her back. "Had you the choice?"

Lyanna's eyes met hers, grey and still as the winter they'd left behind in King's Landing. "Nobody. Nobody of consequence. If I were a man, I'd be a hedge knight. Take service where it pleased me--"

"And paid well," Ashara interjected. "Arthur reminded Myles and Richard of that often enough that they turned it into a song."

Richard Lonmouth had died beside Rhaegar at the Trident, and Myles Mooton some weeks earlier in Stoney Sept. So few of us are left. She glanced at Ashara, who raised her glass. In silent understanding, Lyanna echoed the motion. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they'd called her at Harrenhal, the name agreed between Oberyn, Rhaegar, and Elia on seeing the strange shield borne by the mystery knight who had turned out to be Lyanna Stark.

As she closed her eyes to savour the wine--and to wonder what would happen to her mother's yearly allowance of Arbor gold if Lord Redwyne bent the knee to Robert--Elia had an idea. "Ash, how long has your brother been without a squire?" It was a mad idea, but it just might work. "It can't have been that long."

"It took him six months after Cousin Leander died in the Kingswood to even think about replacing him. There was a boy from the Reach, but Arthur never took to him. Said he talked too much." She glanced up as Lyanna gave a startled laugh. "You noticed that, did you?"

"It's no wonder he and Rhaegar were so close," Elia murmured, half to herself. Her husband could go for hours in utter silence and hated nothing so much as speaking to people he'd never met before. "How is he, Ash?"

"It's Arthur. Give him something to do or he'll brood himself into recklessness." Ashara looked up and Elia saw a telltale glint in her eyes. "He wishes he'd been there at the Trident."

"Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't need to."

 "You don't mean..." Hope flared to life in Lyanna's face, transforming it altogether. She had not smiled when Rhaegar named her Queen of Love and Beauty, Elia recalled, and she'd kept her helmet on as the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Laughter makes her beautiful. Rhaegar must have seen that too. "Not Ser Arthur?"

"I can't make any promises on his behalf. I can only ask him."

True to her word, she sent Ashara to find him early the next day. Her brother was the stuff of legend to hear the singers tell of him, and when he stood in Elia's chamber immaculate in white linen and ringmail, Dawn sheathed across his back, she nearly believed it. His hair, lighter than Ashara's, had several telltale streaks of grey--the youngest of the Kingsguard until Ser Jaime, he had joined their company at the age of twenty, at least partly to train Rhaegar in arms. He dropped to one knee before her chair and bowed his head. "Princess."

"Ser Arthur." Elia felt herself sitting straighter in his presence--Arthur has that effect on people, Rhaegar had whispered to her when they were first introduced in King's Landing before the wedding. I will not think of that now. "You and your Sworn Brothers are still here, though the king is leagues away."

"He is no king of mine." Though he spoke softly, the words were sharp as broken glass. "I swore him no oath, and were he within my reach, I would send his soul to the darkest of hells."

"You swore your oath to King Aerys," Elia reminded him. "They call him the Mad King now."

"My sword was Rhaegar's and always has been. What I would have done in my Sworn Brothers' place, I cannot say, but I was never forced to make that choice." His voice shook and his eyes met Elia's as he stopped for breath. Though he looked nothing like Rhaegar, the two had been inseparable since they were young and it showed--they could speak volumes without a word, and she'd watched them spar once in the tiltyard at Dragonstone with the strange grace of a dance, partners who could perfectly predict one another's movements. Had it been any other man, Elia might have offered some comfort, but the Sword of the Morning was too remote for that, even if his next words had an older brother's exasperation beneath the grief. "He had no business fighting Robert Baratheon alone."

A hammer through the heart. Dawn had been forged from the heart of a fallen star, its blade sharp as Valyrian steel. For a moment, she imagined a single stroke severing that great warhammer's head from its handle, and Elia had to bite her lip against tears. "There's no profit in that, Ser Arthur," she murmured. "I told him to wait for you, for all the good it did."

For a moment, they both kept silent, as though Rhaegar's ghost still hovered between them. He always will. Straightening, his face impassive as an effigy, Ser Arthur continued. "Ashara told me you had a charge for me, my lady."

"I do, Ser Arthur," said Elia, her voice surprisingly steady. "Prince Aegon and Princess Rhaenys are as safe in Dorne as they can ever be. Lyanna Stark's boy too. Brandon," she corrected herself, noting what might have been the briefest glimmer of a smile. "If you would serve us still, I would have you continue to protect the Lady Lyanna. Or, better yet, teach her to protect herself. Ash tells me you haven't had a squire since her cousin died in the Kingswood."

Ser Arthur's frown of distrust was very like his sister's. "You presume a great deal about Lyanna Stark."

"I do," Elia allowed. "But I notice that you haven't refused yet."

Ser Arthur studied her for a moment. "Jaime Lannister too."

It was Elia's turn to hesitate. Ser Jaime had insisted on accompanying them to Dorne despite his uncle's protests, but he had yet to tell her what he intended to do now. "Does he know of your plan?"

"We spoke last night. It is no easy thing, what he did."

Elia had tried once or twice to find out the full truth of why, after nearly a year of silent obedience, Jaime Lannister had turned his sword upon the king, but every time Ser Jaime had turned aside her questions. No easy thing to kill a king. It sounded like a line from a mummer's show. She wondered if the death of Aerys the Mad was a puppet's farce yet. And what would my role be in such a play? Nowhere, she suspected. The scorned wife, abandoned to her fate. But these were idle thoughts, good for nothing. "What do you mean to do?"

"You remember Simon Toyne, don't you?"

Even now, the name chilled her. "How could I forget? He only slaughtered twenty innocent men before my eyes." Rather than brave the stormy autumn waves near the Stepstones, she had made the long journey to her wedding by land--a winding, uneventful road until they entered the Kingswood. Even with no less an escort than the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, the outlaws took them by surprise and it had only been Elia's pleading and the mysterious Smiling Knight's queer sense of chivalry that spared the rest of her escort.

"The king wanted me to root out the Brotherhood, kill them publicly where all could see and take warning. Instead, with Lord Tywin's backing, I put off my white cloak and spent nearly half a year in the Kingswood, speaking to the smallfolk, finding out why they protected such vile creatures." He sighed. "Lord Tywin gave them the remissions and reprieves they sought, and the smallfolk, in exchange, told me where to find Toyne and his men."

"You would do the same now?"

"The men of the Brotherhood were soldiers abandoned by their lords, some of them since the War of the Ninepenny Kings. Bitter, desperate men who only knew how to kill and pillage. Those men are in the Reach and the Riverlands now--orphans from this war. I would give them a purpose, my lady, keep them from becoming another Kingswood Brotherhood, and if not, despatch them for the sake of all."

"Will Robert Baratheon tolerate it?"

"He has no other choice."

Elia smiled. "Go with my blessing, then, and take both of them."

For the first time that she could recall, Ser Arthur Dayne smiled. And, for the first time since she watched Rhaegar ride to his death through the gates of the Red Keep, Elia allowed herself to hope it might all end well.

***

Year 285 after the Conquest

Year 2 of the reign of King Robert Baratheon, First of his Name

They were in a small village close to Harrenhal when they heard that the king was to be married. A singer from the Westerlands had just finished what Jaime and Lyanna both agreed was a disappointing performance of "The Rains of Castamere" and proposed a toast to Lady Cersei Lannister, the sun of the Westerlands and soon to be queen of all the Seven Kingdoms.

"Soon to be the fairest queen since Good Alysanne," he concluded, draining the last of his ale before launching into "The Seasons of my Love," a song Lyanna had heard far too many times in the past year as they made their way across the Reach and the Riverlands. She had little patience for singers these days, haunted in her dreams even now by the faraway echo of silver harpstrings.

Beside her, Jaime was frowning into his untouched ale. Ser Arthur had asked him at least five times already if he wanted to visit Casterly Rock, and every time, Jaime refused. "I'm not ready yet," he'd mutter, to which Ser Arthur would sigh and remind him that a refusal to make a decision was itself a decision, and that Lord Tywin expected his son and heir to inform him face-to-face whether or not he intended to formally renounce his place in the Kingsguard and claim his inheritance. And now his sister is going to be queen.

"How long has it been since you've seen her?" Lyanna asked. She wouldn't have remembered Lady Cersei, having only seen her for a few days in Harrenhal, save that Jaime was a daily reminder.

"The tourney at Harrenhal, same as you." He didn't seem to see Lyanna at all, his eyes thousands of miles away. "So she's to be queen after all."

"What do you mean?"

"Ancient history," he said with a shrug. "Long ago she thought she might marry Prince Rhaegar." Then, glancing at Lyanna, he even managed a brief smile. "You must have displeased her to no end."

They had passed the second year-mind of the Battle of the Trident just a few weeks before. Beneath the waning moon, Ser Arthur had seemed half a statue as he knelt beside the water. Keeping vigil, Jaime had explained to Lyanna as they both watched from a distance, wrapped in their bedrolls. Winter had given way to fair, flowering spring, and the Riverlands were in full bloom. What Rhaegar wouldn't have given to see this.

The dead of the Trident had been burned rather than buried, so there were no graves, but the grass had only just begun to grow on the churned mud beside the river where so many men had fallen.

Ser Arthur rose from his knees and Lyanna pretended not to notice that his first steps were unsteady. Even the Sword of the Morning is only a man.

They took ship from Maidenpool rather than risk recognition on the crowded Kingsroad. After rounding Crackclaw Point, Lyanna watched in fascination as they sailed past the massive black fortress of Dragonstone, now flying the banners of House Baratheon. The former queen and her son had fled to Dorne by way of the Free City of Pentos, and there were even rumours that she was with child when she left Dragonstone, though Ser Arthur didn't know for certain and Jaime flatly refused to talk about either the former king or his lady wife.

He and Ser Arthur were with her when King's Landing came into sight, and Lyanna noticed the older knight's hand clasped reassuringly on Jaime's shoulder. He'd started having nightmares again after several months free of them, no doubt prompted by the prospect of returning to the capital, and the shadows beneath his eyes hurt to see. This is the last place in the world he ever wanted to see again, and here we are.

She realised only belatedly that Jaime had left them after some exchange with Ser Arthur that Lyanna hadn't noticed. The Sword of the Morning was still gazing ahead as the massive red castle drew nearer.

"Robert Baratheon--" It was still difficult for Ser Arthur to say King Robert without grimacing, and Lyanna wondered what he would do when faced with the man himself. Which brought with it the inevitable question of what she would do. "He thinks you're dead. That was the bargain struck between the Princess of Dorne, Prince Doran, yourself, and Lord Stark. If you choose, you could break that silence."

Lyanna stared at him aghast. "Robert is to marry Cersei Lannister in less than a fortnight. If he were to find out I was alive, I don't want to imagine what he would do."

"Then don't tell Robert. He's made Jon Arryn his Hand. The man may be a traitor, but he at least knows how to control his king." Lyanna didn't answer, but she could feel his eyes on her. "If you tell him, you could travel the realm freely under your own name." She knew what he was going to say next. "You could go to Winterfell."

So he'd seen her pause as they passed Harrenhal, her eyes trained on the Kingsroad to the north. Ser Arthur would know as well as anyone what she was capable of--had she not, on the night they met properly for the first time, run away from her brother's escort and unknowingly started a war?

As Leander Sand, squire to Ser Arthur Dayne, she'd travelled the land unseen for more than a year. Nobody looked twice at a squire, and a baseborn squire at that. Instead, they stared at Jaime, who started growing a beard and cutting his hair in the hope that they would stop recognising him. Ser Arthur scarcely seemed to care that he was seen--every brigand he killed or town he aided was to him a victory against Robert. But even as they travelled freely through the Reach and the Riverlands, Lyanna knew she could go no further north than the Trident. They would know me in the North.

She'd overheard that Ned had a son and named him after Robert. The gods' blessing on Winterfell after so much grief, the messenger in Maidenpool had said, the merman of Manderly on his doublet. She'd almost considered asking him to take her back to White Harbor with him. It's only a few days' ride to Winterfell from there. But it would only be a matter of time before word got out that Lyanna Stark, whose untimely death all the North had mourned, had been seen on the eastern road.

"You think he'll force himself on you," Ser Arthur said after a moment, disbelief and disgust in his voice.

"No!" Lyanna shook her head. "Not that. Robert isn't...but he's the king now. He wouldn't need to force me. He could make me marry him and nobody could stop him."

"Says the maid who ran away with Rhaegar Targaryen," said Ser Arthur, his voice shaking oddly. Lyanna realised with a start that he was laughing. She'd seen it all of once before in all the time she'd spent with him. "Gods have mercy, the man would need to be a prize idiot to try that again."

Lyanna laughed in spite of herself. "I don't know if he is. I know he's stubborn."

Ser Arthur placed one hand on her shoulder. "If Robert were to spurn Cersei Lannister, it would start another war. Even if his puppet usurper threatened it, Lord Arryn would never let it happen. He's no fool."

"How do you know that?"

"He'd be dead by now if he were."

Jon Arryn had been like a second father to Ned. And I am Ned's sister; he cannot turn me away. Slowly, she nodded. "If you'll go with me."

"They won't touch you. I swore an oath." To Princess Elia, she remembered, all those months ago in Sunspear. He'd sworn to protect her--and to teach you to protect yourself, he'd told her, those were her orders.

"And unlike Rhaegar, you keep yours."

"That's not fair, Lyanna."

"Isn't it?" She turned back to the capital and the Red Keep. "He should have done something about his father and taken the throne. You can't deny that."

"No. But how do you tell your closest friend that his only hope of salvation lies in killing his own father, his king?"

"If that king is mad and a murderer, you tell him to his face," Lyanna retorted.

"Would you tell Robert as much?" demanded Ser Arthur, his words sharp as Lyanna's dagger.

But she did not look away. "Robert is no murderer, whatever else you may say of him. Rhaegar went into battle. He knew the risks." In the back of her mind, she heard Princess Elia's voice. There is only one culprit. "It was King Aerys who murdered my brother Brandon and my father and all those other men with no cause. He started the war. Even the princess said it was so."

"But that wasn't why Robert went to war. He went to war for you, because he thought Rhaegar had stolen what was rightfully his--"

"I don't belong to anybody!"

"Careful," said Jaime Lannister from somewhere behind Lyanna. "If you shout much louder, there's a draught that carries anything you say directly to the White Sword Tower." When they both spun to stare at him, he shrugged. "I speak from experience."

Ser Arthur nodded, tight-faced. "I had that room when I was first raised to the Kingsguard. I heard more about King's Landing whores than I ever cared to know."

Lyanna just wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself and glared at the water.

When the ship dropped anchor, Ser Arthur led them from the harbour through a crowded square hung with banners of black, gold, and red, lions and stags intermingled, though it seemed to Lyanna that the lion of Lannister shone even brighter than the Baratheon stag. They came to an unremarkable-looking inn whose windows sagged and whose door hung loose on the hinges, and while Jaime and Lyanna lurked near the doorway, Ser Arthur retrieved a chest from the innkeeper and took them upstairs to a small but clean room.

Within the chest were two white cloaks. Ser Arthur tossed one to Jaime, who stared down at it in shock until the Sword of the Morning added, "It's still your charge, Jaime."

"They'll know what I did here."

"Yes, they will. But they, more than anyone else in the kingdom, will also understand why. King Aerys'--" Strange how the Mad King's name came so easily to him while he always seemed to choke on Robert's, "--first victims came from Flea Bottom. I may not have seen the great lords he murdered, but there were others. Beggars, thieves, whores...first to the dungeons, and then to the flames."

"Why didn't you stop him?" Jaime asked.

Ser Arthur did not answer at first. When he did, he spoke quietly enough that Lyanna could barely hear him. "I asked the Lord Commander why he didn't stop the murder of Lord Stark and his son. He told me that he believed the king when he insisted that they were guilty of treason." Ser Arthur swept the cloak across shoulders in a single practised movement. "I had no such excuse. I even told Rhaegar on the journey to Harrenhal that if the king were to dismiss Lord Tywin, there would be no one to stop him, but perhaps I ought to have done it myself, oaths be damned." He looked directly at Jaime then, his eyes dark and haunted. "You showed more courage that day, Jaime, than I ever did, and you should never forget that."

Even Jaime didn't seem to know how to respond, instead putting on his cloak in silence. He'd had golden armour at Harrenhal, Lyanna remembered, and the pristine white cloak looked strange against the battered mail he'd been wearing for the past year. Nonetheless, when the three of them departed--Lyanna in a squire's tunic of Dayne violet-and-silver, her close-cropped hair combed into some semblance of order--Jaime sat straight in the saddle, as proud as any Lannister. He'd shaved off his beard the day after hearing of his sister's betrothal and his hair had begun to grow back in riotous golden curls.

There was a hook-shaped road that led from Fishmonger's Square up the hill to the gates of the Red Keep, and as they made their way along its length, Lyanna could hear the whispers turn into a chorus of conversation, rumours spinning themselves as prentices and stableboys ran ahead to warn of their arrival.

Ser Arthur did not pause beneath the Red Keep's gates, riding in just as he must have done hundreds of times as a Sworn Brother of Aerys Targaryen's Kingsguard. Though he hesitated for a fraction of a second, glancing at the empty spikes above the gates, Jaime followed, and Lyanna brought up the rear, her eyes widening as they entered the imposing castle constructed nearly three hundred years earlier at the command of Maegor the Cruel.

They dismounted in front of an enormous building with tall, narrow windows, guarded by men in Baratheon livery. Just as the four guards stepped forward, spears at the ready, one of the massive doors opened and out stepped an older knight wearing a white cloak identical to Ser Arthur's. It took Lyanna a moment to recognise Barristan the Bold, who had lost to Rhaegar in the final tilt at Harrenhal. She had wondered at the time if the older knight had let the prince win--but I don't suppose that even matters now. He moved stiffly now, favouring his right leg, and she remembered that he'd been sore wounded at the Trident.

"As I live and breathe," he said, one hand on his sword, "is that Ser Arthur? Then I suppose the rumours are true."

"What have you heard?" Ser Arthur asked as he stepped forward and held out his hand. "It is good to see you recovered, brother."

But Ser Barristan was looking beyond him at Jaime, his brow furrowed in disapproval. "Snatches of stories, here and there, of two Kingsguard knights errant in the Riverlands, aiding villagers and smallfolk in the name of Rhaegar Targaryen."

"They receive help from no other quarter. What harm is there in honouring the dead?"

"You've always danced close to treason, Ser Arthur. I pray it doesn't catch you. Why are you here now?"

"I have somewhat of importance that Lord Arryn needs to hear. Ser Jaime," he added with a gesture, "wishes to speak with his father, Lord Tywin."

"The Lannister party have their quarters in the Maidenvault, but Lord Tywin is hunting with the king and won't return until tomorrow," said Ser Barristan coolly. "As for Lord Arryn, if you wait in the Tower of the Hand, he'll join you when he’s finished."

Ser Arthur had not moved, his hand still outstretched to his Sworn Brother--or was it his former Sworn Brother? "I mean it, Ser Barristan. It is good to see you. There are too many of us gone to the gods."

Something softened in the older knight's face, and he shook Ser Arthur's hand. "I should return to my duties, ser. His Grace has been most kind."

"More so than one might have predicted," Ser Arthur conceded. "You've improved my opinion of him, such as it is."

"Don't say that too loudly. Some things haven't changed." He leant forward and whispered something to Ser Arthur that Lyanna could not hear. After a few moments of murmured conversation, Ser Arthur stepped back and inclined his head.

"We'll speak further, I'm sure."

"Do you intend to stay?"

"Not in the Red Keep. We have rooms near Fishmonger's Square."

Ser Barristan gave a brief smile. "I shouldn't mind the company. The White Sword Tower is too quiet these days. But that is for another day. You know the way to the Tower of the Hand."

Lyanna and Jaime followed Ser Arthur through the courtyard, beneath a portcullised gate, and parted ways in front of what Lyanna assumed was the Tower of the Hand. Ser Arthur then led her past a tall-windowed building guarded by two men in blue-and-white livery who barely batted an eye as they passed. Lyanna wondered if they'd mistaken Ser Arthur for Ser Barristan, the only Kingsguard knight remaining in the capital--so far as she knew--but even when they reached the audience chamber where they were to await Lord Arryn, she couldn't bring herself to ask.

Instead, Lyanna examined the room, fascinated by the thick, colourful rugs and wall-hangings. One was clearly of Queen Visenya's arrival in the Eyrie, the dragon's wings painstakingly embroidered and Dark Sister glittering with silver thread. She didn't realise how long she'd been staring at it until the doors swung open to admit a tall, broad-shouldered man she vaguely recognised from Harrenhal.

Lord Jon Arryn studied Ser Arthur with grim suspicion. "Well. When I was told who was waiting for me, I confess I didn't believe it at first. What do you want with me, Ser Arthur? If it is to take up your old position, that is His Grace's prerogative, not mine."

"No, Lord Arryn. I merely bring you news that will be of interest to you."

Lord Arryn crossed the room and seated himself at the massive table covered with papers. "I cannot imagine what that might be, though I've heard many interesting things from Lord Tully and others in the Riverlands."

"I suspect you have," said Ser Arthur. "But this isn't about the Riverlands."

"Then, if you would be so kind as to tell me what you want, I have many more important concerns right now."

Ser Arthur motioned for Lyanna to come closer. Fear coiling in her stomach, she crossed to his side as Lord Arryn looked up from the letter he'd started reading. As his eyes found her, he slowly lowered the letter, his face growing pale.

"What mummery is this, Ser Arthur?"

"No mummery, Lord Arryn. The truth is what I bring you, and I think you know that." He placed his hands on Lyanna's shoulders, and Lyanna wondered if he suspected that what she wanted most was to bolt for the door. "Lyanna Stark."

"Lyanna Stark is dead," Lord Arryn snapped. "Her brother told me so himself, and the king too. They mourned for her together in this very room."

"Because I asked him to," Lyanna said, her voice sounding queer and high-pitched to her ears. "Ned lied to Robert because I asked him to keep my secret."

For a few moments, the Hand of the King just stared at her. "The gods damn you both," muttered Lord Arryn, wiping his brow with his sleeve. "Why did you bring this to my door? If it is revenge you want, you could have revealed it to the king."

"He isn't my king," Ser Arthur said.

Jon Arryn's cheeks grew red and his mouth thinned to a flat white line. "I could have your head for treason."

Ser Arthur's smile at that moment was the most frightening thing Lyanna had seen in some time. "I'd like to see you try."

To his credit, Lord Arryn shook his head. "I'd sooner destroy the Red Keep itself. You take me for a fool, Ser Arthur. Every stableboy and servant lad will be speaking of the Sword of the Morning's arrival in the capital--you've guaranteed that. So what do you do here? What will you have of me?"

But Ser Arthur had only just opened his mouth to answer when the door was flung open to reveal a young woman with startlingly red hair woven into complicated plaits with ribbons and pale pink blossoms. She wore bright blue edged in red--Tully colours, Lyanna realised after a moment. She'd heard during their weeks in the Riverlands that Lady Catelyn's younger sister had married the aged lord of the Vale, but glancing between them now she had to suppress a shudder. "My lord, there's been..." Lady Arryn trailed off and her eyes widened as she saw Arthur. "I'm interrupting."

"Of course not, my lady," said Lord Arryn stiffly. "Did you mean to tell me that the Sword of the Morning has been seen in the Red Keep? If so, well, here he is."

"I...no, that wasn't it, but..." The girl-woman in the doorway fidgeted a little with the silvery pomander hanging at her waist. "It's a ship newly arrived in harbour, my lord. From Dorne. She flies the banners of House Martell."

Lord Arryn sighed. "If I survive this wedding, Lysa, it will be a miracle."

***

It was the first time Elia had seen the Red Keep since she'd turned her back on it for Sunspear. Only this time she had Oberyn beside her, clasping her hand.

"Just say the word and I'll make the captain turn back."

"No," said Elia. "I'd rather haunt them, if only for a day or two. Be ready to leave the capital at a moment's notice, for sure, but not yet.”

"In a heartbeat, sister." He had grown up since her marriage--nigh on a year in the Citadel, two serving with the Second Sons in Braavos and later in Volantis. He had even led his own band of sellswords on behalf of the Magister of Lys. "Are you sure you don't want me to kill him for you?"

"Don't joke about that," Elia remonstrated. "Haven't you had enough of death?"

All three of the Princess of Dorne's children had stood on the beach beside the Water Gardens and watched as her funeral pyre was lit on a small wooden boat--her final illness had bent her back and curled her joints with pain--and her soul freed to return to Mother Rhoyne. Even with the coming of the Seven, there were some customs Nymeria's children would never fully abandon. There had been a similar pyre lit for Queen Rhaella Targaryen just before the turn of the year, and Elia had held little Daenerys while Viserys buried his face in her skirts and sobbed for the mother he would never see again.

"I shall be your good-sister and your mother now," Elia had told him, smoothing the silky silver curls, "but we won't ever forget her, will we, or how brave she was."

"Just like Rhaegar?"

"Braver," Elia said. "She had to fight your royal father every day. Rhaegar only had to fight Robert Baratheon once." And he lost--he lost because he thought the gods had cursed him. "But you're safe now, sweetling."

Viserys had his father's eyes, but with none of the king's cruelty. Let us hope it stays that way. According to Rhaegar, King Aerys had not always been mad, but Elia had often wondered how much he'd pretended not to see, fully aware that whatever horrors consumed his father might also lurk within his own mind.

Protect them for me, Queen Rhaella had begged her on her deathbed, fingers of skin and bone clinging to Elia's hand. You are the strongest of us, it seems. Keep them safe, whatever it takes. Elia made her promise and watched as the sweetest of smiles wreathed the queen's ravaged face and the light left her beautiful eyes. Her mother had followed her former lady within half a year, and it was only the gods' own luck that Oberyn had returned from Lys in time to bid her farewell and present her with his fifth daughter, a pretty, dark-haired girl named after Elia.

On returning to Sunspear after the funeral, Doran was quietly crowned--their mother having been much loved in her many years on the throne--and the first order of business Maester Caleotte brought before him was the news that Robert Baratheon, styling himself king upon the Iron Throne, was to marry Cersei of House Lannister.

"Lord Tywin finally gets what he wants," had been Elia's assessment. "Or he will, once there's a half-Lannister heir to the Iron Throne. Mother would have appreciated the irony."

"After what happened to Uncle Lewyn, I doubt that," Doran replied grimly. Then, when she didn't reply, he narrowed his eyes. "What are you about, Elia?"

She gave him her sweetest smile. "I've always liked weddings."

"No. Absolutely not." Doran's mouth worked for a moment. "Why in the world would I even consider that?"

"Think of all we could learn about them, Doran. Mother always said you could learn more about your enemies from their celebrations than from their battles." She took his hands in hers. "The longer we hold ourselves aloof, the less we know and the more suspicious we look. Do you think I want to go back to that horrible place? But I need to know what kind of king Robert Baratheon intends to be, and how well Lord Arryn can control him. It's the perfect excuse."

Doran glared at her. "I don't like it."

"He won't hurt me, Doran. How could he? If he did, he'd be no better than Aerys and all the world would see it."

They argued for nearly three hours, and it was only when Maester Caleotte and Doran's newly appointed castellan Ricasso joined Elia in her plea that Doran finally relented. It was long past time for Dorne to take back its place in the governance of the Seven Kingdoms, and who better to represent the healing of old wounds than the princess who had nearly become Rhaegar Targaryen's queen?

She'd even convinced him--Doran giving in with an expression of utter despair--to let her bring Oberyn as her sworn shield, but not before he spent another several hours closeted with her younger brother, presumably listing everything he was forbidden to do within the walls of the Red Keep.

As they were preparing to sail from Sunspear, she received word from Ser Arthur Dayne that he, Jaime Lannister, and Lyanna Stark were also making for King's Landing. A reckoning, indeed. That news, she kept to herself. Doran's nerves would only take so much strain.

Oberyn had insisted upon bringing Ellaria Sand--an indulgence Elia gladly permitted, if only to keep him out of trouble. Well, too much trouble. She knew her brother too well to think otherwise. The two remaining Kingsguard knights she had left behind in Sunspear with the royal heirs. It will be enough of a challenge to explain Ser Arthur's presence.

As the ship docked, Elia lingered by the rail, peering up at the great red monstrosity perched on Aegon's High Hill. Rhaegar had always hated it too, she remembered, preferring the relative peace of Dragonstone to the endless stares and spies of the capital. Aerys is dead now. I must remember that.

Waiting for them on the pier was a contingent of men in gold-dyed cloaks whose leader bowed as Elia's guards carried her chair from the ship to the pier.

"Commander Stokeworth," said Elia, holding out her hand to him, "you look well."

"Princess Elia." He shook her hand firmly, and his round face relaxed as she smiled at him. "I've been sent by the Hand of the King, my lady, to escort you and your party to the Red Keep."

"Of course. Where will we be staying?"

"Lord Arryn has offered you his own quarters in the Tower of the Hand." She couldn't hide the small exhalation of relief--not that she'd expected to return to the horrors of Maegor's Holdfast, traditionally reserved for the royal family, but the confirmation was still sweet. Jon Arryn is a prudent man and wants us close at hand. Commander Stokeworth's eyes widened, however, as he caught sight of Oberyn, Ellaria on his arm, descending to the pier behind Elia's guards. Ashara, cloaked and hooded in the purple and silver of her house, followed as Elia's sole handmaid for this journey. "How many have you brought with you, my lady?"

"My brother Prince Oberyn and his paramour Ellaria Sand, and the Lady Ashara Dayne, my lady-in-waiting. I promise we will not overwhelm Lord Arryn. No doubt he has many affairs of his own to tend to."

Oberyn's grin was not calculated to instil confidence in anybody, let alone the Commander of King's Landing's City Watch, but Manly Stokeworth kept his composure and, nodding to his men, led the Dornish party from the harbour along the hooked road toward the Red Keep.

The sight of black-and-gold banners above the gates gave Elia a start, but she kept her expression carefully neutral. The citizens of King's Landing had never cared for her, suspicious of the Dornish in general, but word had spread of her speaking on their behalf to the conquering forces of Stark and Lannister after the disaster at the Trident, and she even heard one or two cheers for "the good princess." That will not please Cersei Lannister. Petty as it was, she could take some satisfaction in that.

Robert Baratheon, they soon learned, was hunting in the Kingswood and not likely to return until the following day. With him were the lords Tywin and Gerion Lannister and two newly inducted members of the Kingsguard, Ser Preston Greenfield and Ser Garlan Osgrey. Perhaps that is all for the best, Elia thought as they were led to their quarters in the Tower of the Hand, now staffed with guardsmen in Arryn blue and white.

Lord Arryn himself they did not see until that evening in the Small Hall, where she noticed that the tapestries depicting long-dead Targaryens had not been changed. The Hand of the King greeted them with a distinct lack of enthusiasm while his child-wife stared in undisguised fascination. It was only when Elia saw the figure lurking behind one of the pillars, robed in pink silks and bald as an egg, that she couldn't hide her reaction.

Ashara squeezed her hand. "So he survived after all," she murmured. "I wonder how."

"Men like him always survive, Ash," Elia replied under her breath. "I just expected him to do so in the Free Cities."

Lord Varys found her before the end of the evening as the banquet's final course was being cleared away and the floor opened for dancing. The bride-to-be was dining with her ladies in the Maidenvault, but Oberyn led the first dance with Lady Lysa Arryn, and the room was soon filled with music and laughter.

"I didn't expect to see you here again, princess," the eunuch said from behind Elia. He did not seat himself, aware of his strange status within the royal household even now. "I'm sure you have your reasons."

"If I did, I'd hardly tell you now, would I?" retorted Elia, taking a sip of Dornish red. "I happen to be fond of weddings. I didn't expect to see you either."

The Spider gave what Elia supposed was a smile. "I make it a point to be unpredictable."

"Clearly. Although I must wonder about Robert Baratheon's reasons."

"Every king needs spies, my lady, and I am the best of my kind."

"Still proud as ever."

"I could say the same for you. Does it pain you, my lady, to think that none of this will ever be yours? That your children will grow up penniless exiles in your brother's court with no hope of a throne?"

He was baiting her. Elia counted slowly backwards from ten as she took a long sip of wine. "My children are no concern of yours."

"Quite the contrary. They are very much my concern, as are their cousins. You've quite the little den of traitors in Sunspear these days. Even a baseborn Stark, I hear," he added, his gaze wandering to Ashara dancing with one of the knights from the Eyrie. "Such a pity that the Lady Lyanna did not survive her ordeal."

"It is," echoed Elia. "I hear the king was much moved by it."

"Lord Arryn had to fight for this marriage. No matter that the Lady Cersei is as fair as she is rich."

"She can't enjoy that. To have a dead woman's shadow between her and her future husband must be disappointing." Of course, Cersei Lannister had once been intended for Elia's own late husband, so perhaps it cut both ways. "Why would you tell me this, Lord Varys?"

The eunuch merely studied her, his expression carefully bland. Biting her tongue, Elia took a larger gulp of wine than was perhaps advisable.

It was going to be a long night.

***

Ser Arthur had decided to skip the banquet and they hadn't seen Jaime since he disappeared into what Lyanna supposed must be the Maidenvault, where his sister's party was staying. The Kingsguard knight finally gave her permission to leave their borrowed chambers in the Tower of the Hand to retrieve Jaime.

"And only that, you hear?" he warned her. "Don't wander off."

There was a time when Lyanna would have taken that as encouragement to explore, but she hadn't been able to shake the feeling of eyes on her since their arrival in the Red Keep. She had cracked the door briefly to watch the party from Sunspear make their laughing, careless way down the winding staircase, Princess Elia carried in the arms of a man who Lyanna recalled from Harrenhal as her other brother. She wore layers of red, orange, and golden silk with alternating panels of black embroidered, to Lyanna's shock, with red Targaryen dragons. Because Robert can't touch her, no matter what she wears. Lady Ashara and another dark-haired lady Lyanna didn't recognise accompanied them, clad in more muted finery.

As she reached the bottom of the staircase, she could hear the commotion from down the narrow corridor that led to the banquet hall. There were two guards flanking the arched doorway whose disapproving stares kept her from creeping closer in hopes of getting a glance into the room, and she reluctantly turned back to the outer doors.

In the courtyard she could see the great bulk of the Red Keep's sept to her right and, beyond it, the darkness of the godswood. I wonder if Ser Arthur would mind if I stopped there. Of course, dark as it was, she might get lost, but Lyanna had never been frightened of a godswood and this one was smaller than Winterfell's by far. It's been too long since I've seen a heart tree up close. They were few and far between in the Riverlands, and there hadn't been time to visit the Isle of Faces.

With one glance toward the long, narrow building she recalled Jaime entering earlier that day, Lyanna turned to the godswood and made her way through the small gateway in the wall. On impulse, she snatched a small lantern that hung from a hook beside the entry, hoping nobody had seen her.

As soon as she entered, the noise of the courtyard and the banquet vanished, swallowed by the canopy of leaves. When she'd left Winterfell nearly three years earlier it had been deep winter, the godswood a maze of naked branches clawing toward the sky.

There were paths of a sort that wound through the trees, and Lyanna held her stolen lantern aloft to light her way. She could hear the occasional burst of birdsong, the chittering of rodents in the trees, and the whisper of the wind through the leaves, and the air smelled of dirt and greenery. It almost smells like home.

The heart tree caught her by surprise when she entered a large clearing--it was a great oak tree, its carven face almost completely obscured by a tangle of vines. Setting down her lantern, Lyanna drew the dagger from her belt and sawed at the vines until she could see the red eyes and mouth. After resheathing the blade, she pressed both her hands and forehead to the tree and stood there for a long moment.

She might have spoken, except that she heard the echo of footsteps in the distance. Snatching up her lantern, she dove behind the massive tree.

"I thought I saw a light." It was a woman's voice with an accent Lyanna couldn't identify. "Are you sure there's no one here?"

"Everyone is at the banquet or back in their chambers." With a heavy feeling of dread, Lyanna recognised Jaime Lannister's voice. "There's no one here, Cersei, I promise. The godswood is one of the few places in the Red Keep where even Varys' little birds don't venture."

Lyanna knew she should step out, make her presence known, and she nearly did so until she saw, by the light of the new lantern, Cersei and Jaime Lannister entwined unmistakeably in a passionate embrace. Oh gods, Jaime, what are you doing? He had to be mad--she had to be. She's to be queen in less than a week. And Jaime was a member of the Kingsguard, two oaths smashed in one single act.

Ser Arthur couldn't have known, otherwise he would never have brought Jaime here. Surely not; surely he wouldn't have let Jaime damn himself just to spite Robert. But Ser Arthur was still Rhaegar's sworn shield, even beyond the grave--how far might he go to avenge himself on Rhaegar's killer?

"Why did you stay away so long, Jaime?" whispered Lady Cersei, the words muffled in Jaime's hair. "What was so damned important in the Riverlands that you couldn't come home to me?"

"I'm here now," Jaime murmured, pushing the cloak from her shoulders to reveal a near-translucent nightshift. "Gods forgive me, I couldn't stay away. It would be better for us both if I'd stayed away forever--"

"How can you say that?" she demanded. In one quick motion, she shoved him backward, catching him off-balance so he tumbled to the ground. He made no attempt to move even as she straddled him, her golden hair cascading across her shoulders. She was beautiful beyond compare--even Lyanna could see that from her perch behind one of the heart tree's massive roots. "You can't leave me, Jaime. Not again. Not ever."

"Father will--"

"Father won't. Father goes back to Casterly Rock and we needn't think of him ever again. It's just as I promised you, Jaime. Just like Queen Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight..."

"And Robert the Unworthy. Don't forget him. You'll be marrying him in a few days, after all."

The slap Lady Cersei dealt her brother echoed across the clearing. "Then why in the gods' name did you come back?"

"I had to see you. To ask you one last time." Jaime sat up, gripping his golden-haired twin sister around her waist and pressing his lips to hers as though she were the very air he needed to breathe. "Run away with me, Cersei. I could make you happy if you would only let me."

She didn't answer, and as Lyanna watched, unlaced Jaime's tunic and pulled it over his head. He'd abandoned his white cloak and armour before even arriving in the godswood, Lyanna noticed, and she took advantage of their distraction with one another to creep away from the clearing, her stomach roiling and her heart pounding.

She ran blindly until she came to a wall, which she then followed back to the gateway through which she'd first entered the godswood, the image of what she'd just witnessed branded on her eyes. Abandoning her lantern on the hook, she crossed the courtyard to the Tower of the Hand and took the winding stairs two at a time until she came to the wooden doors she remembered from their meeting with Lord Arryn earlier that day. Lord Arryn can't possibly know, nor can Lord Tywin, otherwise they never would have allowed this marriage.

Lyanna closed the door behind her and leant against it. This, then, was the real reason Jaime had wanted so badly to come to King's Landing. It will be his ruin and hers. And Robert's, for that matter, if he married Lady Cersei.

"Lady Lyanna." She jumped at the words, realising only then that the chamber she'd unwittingly entered was not her own. She and Ser Arthur had been placed on the floor below Lord Arryn's own chambers, which he'd given over to Princess Elia and her party, and it was the princess, seated on a silk couch near the window, who was looking curiously at her over a half-filled glass of wine. She wore the same gown Lyanna had seen earlier, its panels draped like flower petals across the arm of the couch, and her black hair was elaborately twisted with strands of pearls and gold. "I'd hoped to see you, but I confess I hadn't expected a visit at this hour."

Lyanna felt her cheeks grow warm. "I lost my way. Should I go?"

"Not at all. Unless of course you want to." When Lyanna shook her head, the princess gestured to a nearby table holding a flagon of wine and several glasses. Beside it was a brazier almost burned out, its smoke lightly scented. "Please, help yourself."

Lyanna needed no further encouragement, pouring herself one glass and draining it before carrying glass and flagon back to the couch and pouring herself another as she sat down. The wine was sweet and heavy and tasted of honey.

Princess Elia laughed. "It must be a very good evening or a very bad one." Lyanna did not answer, and she tilted her head to one side in an almost catlike movement. "You look well. I see Ser Arthur is fulfilling his charge admirably."

"He has his reputation for a reason," Lyanna allowed, wondering yet again if Ser Arthur knew of Jaime Lannister's guilty passion for his twin sister. "There are hundreds of smallfolk, if not thousands, in the Riverlands who will be telling tales of him and Ser Jaime for years to come."

"And you?" asked the princess softly. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Lyanna stared down at the golden wine in her glass. "I don't know. I'm not even certain what that was." As she watched, she could see the reflection of the brazier's embers swirling hypnotically. "We went to the Trident."

The princess was silent for a few moments. "What did you find there?"

"Nothing. Just water and mud and grass. You might not have even known there was a battle, save that the smallfolk leave trinkets on the hills nearby. Offerings for the dead, as though they would haunt that empty place." Though she couldn't see for certain, she could feel those dark eyes on her, suddenly intent. "I can't listen to singers anymore," she burst out without thinking. "Because I always hear him."

For a few moments, Princess Elia did not speak. When she did, her voice was carefully level. "The harp survived, somehow. Lord Arryn sent it to Sunspear. A peace offering of sorts, with my uncle's bones. One of my handmaids is teaching Rhaenys to play--I think her father would have approved." After another moment's silence, she asked, "Did you love him? I probably shouldn't ask you that, but I'm doing it anyway."

Lyanna shook her head. "I thought I did, at first. But it wasn't love. If it had been, surely his death would have destroyed me."

"No." The word's force caught Lyanna off-guard, and she looked up, meeting Princess Elia's eyes. "That isn't how it works, Lyanna. You think the grief will kill you, but then you force yourself, every day, to move further from it."

"I didn't even feel that. Just...nothing. Pity for my son at first, who would never know his father, but he has a better life now than Rhaegar could ever have given him." She caught her breath. "You gave him that, my lady."

"Elia."

Lyanna blinked.

"Call me Elia. Please." She held out her glass and Lyanna refilled it. "What startled you so much that you came bounding in here? You looked as though you'd seen a ghost."

Lyanna shook her head. "It's not my secret to tell, my...Elia."

"There are no secrets here, I'm afraid." Bitterness stained the princess' words as she glanced toward the empty hearth. "Don't you feel it? The eyes ever watching; the ears at every door and window?"

"How did you stand living here?" asked Lyanna with a shudder. "I couldn't."

"I didn't have a choice. I came here, Lyanna, to help your brother Brandon, but my words did no good. Instead the king imprisoned me there," she said, gesturing through the large window toward the bulk of a tall building whose windows were still alight even at this hour, "in Maegor's Holdfast. I traded what I knew of your whereabouts to your brother Eddard for my freedom and that of my children."

"I've told Lord Arryn the truth. He's going to tell Robert."

"Are you ready for that?"

Lyanna drained the wine in her glass and set it down, tempted as she was to have more. "I won't ever be ready, but I must. I want to go to Winterfell, and I can't so long as all the realm thinks me dead."

"For good?" The princess raised her eyebrows delicately. "Will your brother have that?"

"Not for good," Lyanna conceded. "Winterfell was lost for me long ago, but...Ned has a wife and a son, and I can't bear that they and Benjen should think me dead when I'm not. They won't know about little Bran," she added, lowering her eyes for a moment. "No more than Ned has already told them, of our brother Brandon and Lady Ashara, and that he's staying in Dorne with his mother."

"It's for the best, for now. Rhaenys and Aegon treat him like a brother all the same. He and little Daenerys shared a wet-nurse, and when I left, they were already in the pools with the others." She seemed lost in thoughts for a moment, gazing out into the darkness. "I have more children than I ever imagined. It is a blessing in its own way."

"Is it what you want?" Lyanna asked.

Elia laughed briefly, acidly. "I scarcely know what that means anymore. Am I contented? Yes, to a point. But I was to have been queen, and no number of children can balance the loss of an entire kingdom."

"You would have made a wonderful queen," Lyanna said, scarcely thinking the words through as she said them.

"You flatter me," replied Elia, though her smile belied the words. "What would you ask of me in return for that?"

"Every queen needs a knight to do her bidding." It was only half a jape, and she could feel a flutter of nervousness in her belly. "And I've been trained by the best, haven't I?"

"You would be my sworn shield?" For the first time, she heard uncertainty in the princess' voice. "You surprise me."

"I told you Winterfell is lost to me. And I'm no lady--I'm no good at smiling or flirting with strangers or lying in court. Even Rhaegar--" she had to stop for a moment and force herself not to look away, though it was Rhaegar's widow who watched her in silent contemplation, "I think he understood that, for all the good it did."

"He was awful at all of those things too," Elia observed before holding out her hand, rings glittering in the torchlight. "Give me your hand."

Lyanna obeyed, her heart quickening.

"Do you solemnly pledge your service to me, Lyanna of House Stark, from now until the gods claim you?"

"I do." Her voice didn't shake, though her stomach seemed full of butterflies. "I swear it by the winters to come, by ice and fire."

A shadow passed briefly over the princess' face, but she nodded all the same. Then, before Lyanna could withdraw her hand, Elia leant forward and brushed her lips against Lyanna's. She caught her breath on a gasp, tasting honey and wine and sweetness as the kiss lingered, and ended too soon.

Elia Martell's cheeks were flushed from wine as she trailed her fingertips across Lyanna's mouth. "You are full of surprises, Lyanna Stark. But I suppose I knew that long ago in Harrenhal, didn't I?" Without waiting for an answer, she slipped one hand into Lyanna's hair and kissed her again.

How long it lasted, Lyanna couldn't tell, nor did she care. And when Elia asked--words half-muffled in the hollow of Lyanna's neck--if she would stay, Lyanna scarcely needed to answer, but did nonetheless in a breathless cry that transformed Elia's kisses to laughter...for that moment, at least.

Hours later she crept back down the stairs before dawn to find Ser Arthur already awake. He shook his head. "I told you not to wander off."

"I've never been much good at that," Lyanna admitted, aware that her cheeks had turned bright red, that her hair was mussed and smelled unmistakeably of a particular Dornish perfume.

"Jaime's in the sept. He wanted to speak with you."

Thankful for the chance to escape, Lyanna splashed some water on her face and ducked from the room, practically skipping down the stairs. When she entered the sept, Jaime was kneeling before the Warrior's statue, so still and quiet that Lyanna wondered if he'd inadvertently fallen asleep until she knelt beside him and he glanced toward her. "I hope I'm not intruding," she said.

He shook his head. "I kept vigil before Ser Arthur made me a knight, so it seemed right that I do it before renouncing my place in the Kingsguard."

Lyanna couldn't suppress a sigh of relief. Aware that Jaime was looking at her, she kept her eyes firmly on the ground. "It's the right decision. I know it."

"And how do you know that?"

She could have lied, but something in her demanded that she tell the truth. "I saw you last night in the godswood. You and...and Lady Cersei."

Jaime sighed.

"You can't go on like that, not if she's to be the queen."

"Queen to a drunken, lecherous buffoon--"

"He's the king, Jaime, like it or not, and your sister is marrying him."

"Do you think that I don't know that?" he hissed. Lyanna glanced at him, but he was staring fixedly at the statue before them. "She wants me to stay, to remain in the Kingsguard. She's the reason I was chosen. Did you know that?"

Lyanna shook her head.

"My father had made plans to wed me to Lord Tully's younger daughter Lysa. When Cersei got wind of it, it was right after Ser Arthur had knighted me, and she was the one who urged King Aerys to appoint me to the Kingsguard. Father never knew--he thought the king did it just to spite him, and perhaps he did, but it was on Cersei's suggestion."

"That's no reason to dig your grave now, Jaime."

"And I won't. But you need to do something for me first." Lyanna's heart began to pound. "Tell the king. Tell him to his face. Tell him why you ran away, that you couldn't bear the thought of marrying him."

"What will that do?" she whispered.

Jaime closed his eyes. "I don't know. But my sister deserves better than a man who thinks himself in love with a ghost. Tell him the truth, Lyanna, and I swear to you that I will turn my back on this place, on my oath, and be the son my father always wanted me to be. The Lord of Casterly Rock."

"I...I need to think," Lyanna said, stumbling to her feet. She froze halfway to the door at the sound of trumpets in the courtyard. "The king."

"The king," echoed Jaime, the ghost of a smile on his face. "The gods save King Robert."

***

It was, without a doubt, the most entertaining wedding Oberyn had ever attended, and the ceremonials hadn't even begun.

Ellaria had scolded him for laughing at Robert Baratheon's expression when, in the middle of the Red Keep's courtyard, Arthur Dayne's gangly squire pulled off his grubby cap and revealed himself as none other than dead Lyanna Stark, but how was a man to help himself under such circumstances?

The Stark girl was wiry and quick, her face nut-brown from the sun and her dark hair cropped to her chin. It was no wonder she passed unnoticed as long as she had; his own Obara would look much the same, he suspected, when she was older.

"Don't you know me, Robert?" she asked, her voice echoing in the stunned silence. "Or is it as I thought?"

"What," choked the would-be king, "did you think? What were you thinking, pretending to be dead? Did Ned know?"

The girl's nod was a sharp jerk of her chin. "He knew. He didn't want to lie to you, but I begged him and he did."

"Why? Seven hells, Lyanna, why?"

"And why are you here now?" That was Tywin Lannister, whose face revealed nothing, but whose hands were clenched whitely against his red tunic. "We should have you in the black cells for treason."

"If I wanted your opinion I'd bloody well ask for it!" roared the king. His face--handsome enough, if not to Oberyn's taste--was crimson with rage, his massive hands clenched tight at his waist.

"Do you truly want to know?" asked Lyanna Stark. "You won't like the answer, Robert. But I want your word before I speak that when you've heard me out, you will let me go."

"Impossible--"

"Shut up, Lord Tywin, or I will have you thrown out." From somewhere behind him, Oberyn could hear Jon Arryn's groan of despair and stepped gracefully aside as the stocky Hand of the King strode forward and clamped one hand on his charge's arm.

"Gods have mercy, Robert, that's enough."

"Did you know too?" For a moment the king's face crumpled like a child's. "Did nobody tell me the truth of this?"

"I only found out yesterday, Robert. But Ned knew. More importantly, he was right. There's nothing to be gained here. Do as the lady says and let her go."

"Have at, then," the king snapped at Lyanna Stark. "What was so important that you felt the need to come back from the bloody grave to tell me?"

The words seemed to explode from her like river in full flood. "I never wanted you. I ran away with Rhaegar Targaryen--he didn't abduct me and he didn't force me to do anything. You killed him, Robert, for nothing. For a lie that you told yourself. And I'm not coming back to you, not now, not ever."

Robert Baratheon stared at her as though he'd taken his own warhammer to the head. "And what am I to do with that?"

"Move on. Stop grieving. The woman you wanted never existed, Robert. Ned could have told you that if you'd ever thought to listen. I tried to tell you, for all the good it did me. You have a queen now, or you will in just a few days." The girl had to stop for a moment, glancing nervously about. "I'm not here for revenge and I never wanted to hurt you. But you just wouldn't listen."

"I can vouch for her story, Your Grace." Intent on the altercation in the middle of the courtyard, Oberyn hadn't seen his sister arrive. Elia rose from her chair, delicate panels of red silk catching in the spring breeze. Without missing a beat, Lyanna Stark strode to her side and dropped to one knee.

"Oh, sister," murmured Oberyn, remembering that Elia's bedchamber had been closed and bolted the night before and that he'd seen two abandoned wineglasses despite knowing she had left the banquet alone. "What have you done?"

"And what am I to tell my daughter, Your Grace?" interjected Tywin Lannister, his voice dangerously soft. He had made note, Oberyn saw, of Elia's hand placed protectively on the head of the girl kneeling beside her. At least one of these northern lunatics wasn't wholly blind.

"Lord Tywin, I assure you none of our arrangements have changed," Lord Arryn insisted, exchanging a quick glance with Elia, who gave him a graceful nod. "The wedding will go forward as planned. Robert?" he addressed the king, a world of warning in the single word.

The king's head jerked in what Oberyn assumed was a nod rather than a furious twitch, but his eyes hadn't left Lyanna. "Get out of my sight. Tell your lying filth of a brother he's as dead to me as you are."

The girl froze, her fingers curled into small fists, and Oberyn could see the rage in every line of her. "Ned didn't--"

She stopped short as Elia's fingers tightened on her shoulder. Oberyn saw his sister give a near-imperceptible shake of her head, and, with a shuddering breath, Lyanna lowered her eyes.

"I'll leave that to you to tell him, Your Grace," she said tightly, rising to her feet. "I wish your daughter all happiness, Lord Tywin. And I wish you well, Robert, whatever you think of me."

"Get. Out."

At a nod from Elia, the girl retreated from the courtyard, to where Oberyn couldn't have said. Without another word, the king stormed in the opposite direction toward Maegor's Holdfast, calling for a flagon of strongwine, while Jon Arryn took Tywin Lannister's arm to lead him to the Tower of the Hand.

As the courtyard cleared, whispers ringing in the air, Oberyn joined his sister with a rueful shake of his head. "Anyone would think you planned to humiliate the man."

"It's no more than he deserves." Elia's voice was rich with satisfaction. "I do believe, brother, that we've officially overstayed our welcome."

"I'll see that our arrangements are made. And I expect you to explain all of this to Doran so he doesn't assume it's my fault."

"Dearest," said Elia, laughing, "he'd never believe that and you know it. You know that's why I brought you."

"It's been too long since I heard you laugh properly. If I have Lyanna Stark to thank for that, I'll take a thousand lectures from Doran."

***

Epilogue

Year 287 after the Conquest

Four years after the Battle of the Trident

There were songs about the She-Wolf of Winterfell, especially popular in Dorne and the Reach even if King Robert had banned them within his court after his marriage, calling them filthy lies and treason.

As for the she-wolf herself, she travelled the length and breadth of the Seven Kingdoms beside the Sword of the Morning. She rode all the way north to the Wall where her brother had taken the black, and south again past the tourney grounds in Highgarden (where she unhorsed four knights before losing--perhaps for reasons of her own--to the king's younger brother Lord Stannis of Dragonstone) to the Prince's Pass where a lonely tower still stood on high, guarding its ghosts and its memories.

A soft summer rain was falling on the day Lyanna Stark and Arthur Dayne arrived at the Water Gardens, nearly four years after they'd ridden out along that very road with Jaime Lannister. Lord Tywin's heir, officially reinstated as part of his sister's coronation, had last crossed their path at the Highgarden tourney, breaking no fewer than six lances against the Sword of the Morning and emerging triumphant to the roar of the crowds. The favour he wore, Lyanna noticed, was still his sister's.

Neither King Robert nor Queen Cersei was in attendance, the queen having only just given birth to a healthy black-haired son named Joffrey. It had been part of why Lyanna and Ser Arthur had chosen that tourney out of the dozens now sprouting across the kingdom as spring transformed into summer.

The first to catch sight of them was a silver-haired boy of nine scarcely recognisable as the Mad King's only remaining son and, for some, the true heir to the Iron Throne, who immediately alerted both his playmates in the pools and those who watched them from the marble-floored colonnade. As the crowd of children descended upon them, Lyanna looked up from the laughing, shrieking faces to meet her lady's dark eyes, full of promise.

She was, finally, home.